For the first time in over three years, MonSFFA will be hosting a live, in-person meeting! It’s scheduled for next month!

When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, we shut down our meeting schedule in keeping with safety protocols implemented at the time. We fully expected to return to a meeting hall in a few weeks, couple months, at most.

-sigh-

Much has changed in the intervening years. The club remained active, but online, quickly introducing a virtual meeting schedule, which developed to include a ZOOM-Chat component in parallel with posted material. This sustained us through the darkest days of the pandemic—remember those lockdowns and curfews!

We find ourselves, now, finally, able to host in-person meetings again after some two years of frustration talking with hotels that had jacked their prices to stratospheric heights way beyond reasonable, or simply shut down their function space altogether. Post-pandemic nerves kept many churches, schools, public libraries, and community centers either reluctant to accommodate us, or just plain unable, or unwilling to make room for us!

But we recently found a very inviting locale, and we’re excited to tell you all about it, and answer your questions about the when, where, and what about this and that! Our ZOOM-Chat for the next little while, therefore, will focus on this new development, and a few other matters related to the club’s activities.

MonSFFA Executive member Joe Aspler snapped the photos below of the facilities we expect to make our new home. There’s plenty of room for a meeting, and for large-scale events like a book sale, and there’s even a bar!

So, a quick overview of all this, and then we’ll field your questions.

This is Post 2 of 4.

Our ZOOM-chat continues, but with a marked increase in shark attacks in the news this summer, we thought we’d rerun the following post, which was originally part of our November 2022 online meeting.

Enjoy. Again.

Steven Spielberg terrorized beach-goers in the summer of 1975 and initiated the modern age of cinematic blockbusters. His Jaws remains the epitome of shark movies. It has many imitators—The Reef, The Shallows—but no equals.

Some shark films, like Deep Blue Sea and The Meg, added science fictional elements to the formula and independent, low-budget, straight-to-video filmmakers soon dove into those lucrative waters, with mixed results.

Some adopted the idea of purposely producing so-bad-it’s-good fare as comically wacky entertainment, resulting in Sharktopus, Dinoshark, Sharknado, and other examples of brainless, B-movie, sci-fi/shark movies. The best of these basked in their absurdity and played as tongue-in-cheek homages to both the shark-adventure and science fiction genres.

At the bottom of the chum bucket are found the irredeemably botched SF/F shark movies, truly the worst, most unprofessional, hackneyed, nonsensical, substandard, misguided failures. Highlighted below are titles that we judged largely as such. Your mileage may differ.

Sharkenstein (2016)

A way-out, wild sci-fi/horror mélange of Jaws, Nazispoitation, and Frankenstein, Mark Polonia directs this earnest but unsatisfactorily executed movie, featuring a cast that includes at least a couple of moderately capable independent-film actors boasting a number of genuine credits within the low-budget horror genre.

The story involves a mad scientist’s scheme—the Great Experiment—to create from the body parts of Great Whites, Hammerheads, Makos and other man-eaters, the penultimate killer shark, into which will be surgically implanted the undying heart and brain of Frankenstein’s monster!

Having originated during World War II, the plan finally comes to fruition in present-day USA. Arriving in a small coastal town for a day of boating, three friends, Skip, Coop, and Madge, soon become entangled in the scientist’s dastardly plans.

While the writing and, in particular, special effects utterly fail to live up to the production’s central, high-concept idea, I’ll give the principal players kudos for, once or twice, expressing through their performances a knowing nod to the fatuous genre within which they are working.

At one point, Greta Volkova, starring as Madge, delivers a line of awkwardly scripted foreshadowing with the mock gravitas appropriate to the occasion. “I’ve never seen a shark like that before,” she emotes. “It looked like a grotesque combination of different sharks.” She later pays nerdy, loving tribute to the Frankenstein story, rattling off a list of classic Frankenstein films produced by Universal and Hammer.

And Jeff Kirkendall, affecting a clichéd German accent as the mad scientist, crowingly outlines his outrageous plan in detail for our three heroes, who find themselves his captives at one point. He and other neo-Nazis operating clandestinely across the globe intend to deploy an “indestructible and unstoppable” army of supersharks, beginning with the archetypal “Sharkenstein.” Eventually, the preserved brains of Nazi leaders, including Hitler himself, will be transferred into these abominations, thus triggering another World War, which this time, the Nazis will win! After a few silent beats to allow the horrendous enormity of the plan to sink in, he melodramatically intones, “This is the part where you tell me I’m crazy!”

All fun, if decidedly imperfect, stuff, in the spirit of the genre, marred further by the clumsiest possible compositing of a Sharkenstein puppet and blood-splatter with live action footage!

Planet of the Sharks (2016) and Empire of the Sharks (2017)

The Asylum, an independent film production house specializing in low-budget, straight-to-video projects, is the chief purveyor of “sharksploitation” flicks like these two. Both are from director Mark Atkins, Empire a prequel to Planet.

Set in a dystopian, Waterworld-like near-future in which global warming has caused the Earth’s glacial ice to melt, flooding the world, pockets of humanity survive on small floating islands of barges, wharves, and boats tethered together.

With ocean plankton unable to endure the warming waters, the ocean’s food chain is collapsing and almost all sea life is dying off, leaving only a great school of sharks, led by an alpha female. But with no fish to eat, the ocean’s apex predators must hunt for food above the surface. “And that’s us,” explains Planet of the Sharks’ Dr. Shayne Nichols, a scientist who is working with others to launch a rocket equipped with CO₂ scrubbers into the high atmosphere, and so reverse the effects of climate change and lower sea levels. Yeah, that’ll work!

But first, an electronic gizmo must be dropped into a dormant undersea volcano in order to draw the threatening sharks to their doom when the team open fire with a laser, which will trigger an eruption. Or something.

There’s a lot of tedious, unnecessary detail, here, which causes the story to drag. And between brief and uninspiringly shot scenes of unconvincing CGI sharks leaping out of the water to chomp on people, far too much of the film’s runtime is spent on lengthy sequences of expository dialogue among the protagonists, just standing around talking to each other. There are also a number of completely superfluous characters, who contribute little, if anything, to the story, save only to further pad out the film’s runtime.

Empire of the Sharks is saddled with many of the same flaws, presenting audiences with countless interminable shots of characters staring intently or woefully at off-screen goings-on, or skimming about on various watercraft, or manoeuvering underwater with Sea Scooters, or aboard a submersible.

Something of a Mad Max on the water, the action, such as it is, follows a poorly realized young hero, who sets out to rescue his girlfriend, Willow, taken captive in the first reel by a ruling overlord. Martial law is imposed by way of a legion of sharks, which the antagonists control with what looks somewhat like a pair of gloves pilfered from the Rollerball set and wrapped in a string of Christmas lights. Each of this post-apocalyptic world’s small, floating communities are required to pay a regular tribute to the strongman, with ruthless punishment meted out to any who refuse, or defy him. Transgressors are held prisoner on his floating fortress and forced into slave labour, with those marked for execution tied to a float and fed to the ravenous sharks.

Long story short, our hero assembles a crew of mercenary types to help rescue the girl and overthrow the evil empire. She, meanwhile, possessed of an innate psychic ability, channels her powers to challenge the overlord for control of sharks, managing to turn them against him and helping to win the day. Like her father before her, she is a “shark caller,” and is celebrated as such as the film concludes.

A handful of the actors, at least, cast in these films have as much fun with their roles as dull scripting will allow, most notably Empire’s Jonathan Pienaar, who plays the overlord’s right-hand man with over-the-top, villainous relish.

Nary a farcical wink is offered to the inherent cheesiness of either movie, and so, these pictures are nothing more than pedestrian sci-fi/actioners. So if you like nonsensically bad science fiction films, you’ll have a better time with The Asylum’s hit, Sharknado, which fully embraces and lampoons the flavour of sci-fi B-movies and its own outlandish premise.

Ouija Shark (2020)

One would not be exceedingly surprised to discover that this movie was produced by a sixth-grader equipped with dad’s camcorder and I suppose that Ottawa-based actor/writer/director Brett Kelly was, once, some years ago, in the sixth grade. Kelly, who guested at ConCept in 2006, directs, here, under his Scott Patrick pseudonym.

Reportedly made for some $300, most of that budget apparently allocated to the titular shark, a rubber, dollar store-quality toy, one cannot reasonably expect very much, if anything, of this film.

Expectations met!

A group of girls enjoying a backyard pool party decide to experiment with an old Ouija board that one of them found washed up on a nearby beach. Inadvertently, they conjure up the ghost of a Great White Shark, which appears as a glowing spectre unremarkably superimposed into various scenes as, one after another, each of the girls is attacked by this phantom fish.

The cast are high-school-drama-club amateurish, a few especially so, the pacing often lethargic, and the production values carelessly inferior. But these factors, coupled with the sheer idiocy of the whole affair, might have been forgiven had the writers injected moments of self-aware pretense. Alas, we are offered but a few weak barbs, not nearly enough of a boost to elevate the piece whatsoever.

Kelly has produced better stuff under his actual name; this one is to be avoided.

Land Shark (2020); Original Title: Lù Xing Shā

Candygram.

The English title of this movie suggests a feature-film adaptation of that classic Saturday Night Live skit, but this is, in fact, a Chinese creature-feature budgeted at some $2 million. Rather derivative of such fare as Deep Blue Sea, The Meg, Tremors, and any number of kaiju films—there’s even a Free Willy moment included!—director Cheng Si-Yu helmed what proved to be a pretty standard-issue CGI-monster movie, reasonably well-crafted but tarnished by a daft premise.

A pharmaceutical research laboratory’s attempt to engineer an anti-cancer drug via genetic tampering results in the creation of a giant, beastly shark capable of terrorizing mankind in the water, and on land!

All of the stereotypical characters that populate such genre films are present, here: the take-charge hero, shark wrangler Song Yi, and his goofy friend and sidekick, Pang Yu, responsible for comic relief; the greedy, callous corporate executive behind the experiment, Qian Cheng; the noble scientist, young, pretty Ye Xin, also our hero’s romantic interest; her craven, morally bankrupt colleague; the leader of Cheng’s private militia, who begins to question his boss’ ethics; the cute kid; and a gaggle of others who serve as chum.

Early in the narrative, the lab’s team of scientists and technicians are surprised to discover that their test subject, an aggressive male shark, is pregnant, an incomprehensible turn of events. “Could it be possible,” asks the portly Pang Yu, “that the shark is so depressed because of being locked up, that it became a sissy as a result?”

I watched the English dub of the film, so I’ll allow that something may have been lost in the translation, however, such puerile dialogue did not bode well.

Later, it’s learned that the shark’s genetic material was augmented by that of earthworms, which reproduce asexually. This, apparently, explains the shark’s pregnant state, and its ability to move about on land and burrow through the soil in hot pursuit of the panicked laboratory personnel! There’s a lot of frantic running away, willy-nilly, until in a moment of respite, we hear again from Pang Yu, who unintentionally summarizes the entire movie. “What’s this even about?” he gasps, breathless. “The sea creature that swims on land! This is quite unscientific.”

Indeed.

Not to be taken seriously as the straight-up science fiction/action picture it aspires to be, but that said, Land Shark does have its charms.

Shark Side of the Moon (2022)

Another one from The Asylum, this stultifyingly lame sci-fi effort, is part Jaws, part Iron Sky, all stupid!

Shark Side of the Moon is a so-called “Mockbuster,” that is, a cheap and cheesy movie that capitalizes on the recognition and popularity of one or more critically-acclaimed and/or big-budget box office successes, often blatantly filching elements from the mainstream films that served as inspiration. Sometimes, this results in a charmingly silly, funny, entertaining, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, in-joke homage of sorts.

But not in this case. Not at all. Even remotely.

The title suggests an astonishingly ridiculous premise, and indeed, Shark Side of the Moon, released as a “Tubi Original” and part of the low-rent streaming service’s Bitefest, involves a colony of deadly human/shark hybrids who have established a technologically advanced colony on the moon!

Created by Soviet scientists during the Cold War, these creatures quickly escaped, but before they could wreak havoc, were lured aboard a space shuttle by one of the scientists for a one-way flight to the moon. Forty years later, American astronauts returning to the moon soon encounter these lunar shark-men, as well as the scientist—he remained aboard the shuttle as pilot—and his half-human, half-shark daughter!

The acting is shoddy and melodramatic, the dialogue inane, and the direction and editing lacklustre, with only the occasional visual effect offering a modicum of flair.

And I won’t even bother to address the film’s unforgivable misunderstanding of basic science, the dubious logic of proceedings, or the sagacity of characters’ motivations because, clearly, the screenwriters didn’t seem to think any of that particularly important, either!

Sharkula (2022)

Director Mark Polonia seems to revel in cut-rate sharksploitation projects; he tapped into the Frankenstein mythos in 2016 (see above) and here returns with a bat-shit crazy Dracula-inspired shark movie!

Set in present-day New England, in the coastal town of Arkham—a salute to Lovecraft—the story began centuries earlier. Count Dracula is chased by a “makeshift mob of uneducated farmers” to the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, where he is stabbed. Wounded, he falls into the raging surf below and is immediately attacked by a large, blood-lusting shark. By way of “mind control,” however, the King of the Vampires succeeds in communicating with, and transferring to the shark his curse.

“If I served him, he would protect me,” Dracula explains later, as he recounts the tale to Arthur and Mina, two of the film’s leads, all of whom are named for characters in Stoker’s original novel. “We all serve someone, or something. Even the mighty Dracula!” he continues. “As those who serve me, I must serve it.”

“Sounds like a load of crap!” replies Arthur.

Precisely.

And the crap doesn’t come any more coiled and steaming than in this movie.

The writing is atrociously bad and the acting underwhelming, though a couple of cast members do strive desperately to make something more interesting of the material they’ve been given. Meanwhile, for some reason—maybe to put across a weird, cultish vibe but more likely to extend the film’s runtime—director Polonia returns often to non-sequitur shots of a leather-clad woman dancing on a beach at dusk twirling what look like flaming marshmallows on sticks!

There is really only one worthwhile thing to be found in this flick: a catchy, 1960s-style, surf-guitar piece by the Sea Demons, employed as Sharkula’s theme song.

Listen here:

Conclusion:

If you like your science fiction, horror, and shark movies cheap, cheesy, and stupid, drop your line in these waters!

All kidding aside, it’s easy to slam such efforts and poke fun, but even the most egregious examples often include a spark or two of creativity that, given more talent and money, may well have amounted to something.

1) INTRODUCTION

Missed MonSFFA’s Barbecue-in-the-Park last Saturday? The club is hosting today online a “Relax-a-ZOOM” Virtual Picnic! Have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!

No formal programming is planned, just a game or two, and an afternoon of casual conversation with friends on topics SF/F and fannish! Share with your fellow MonSFFen the details of your latest genre-themed craft project, tell the group about an SF/F book, movie, or TV series you’ve been enjoying of late, or share vacation photos of cool sci-fi events, exhibits, museums, or shops you may have recently visited? The floor is open! Your input is welcome and encouraged!

Also, given this opportunity, we will have information on our scheduled August in-person meeting—the first in over three years!—plans for the return of the club’s fund-raising book sale, and other matters for which the input of our membership is desired.

So let’s get started…

2) JOIN THIS AFTERNOON’S VIDEO-CHAT ON ZOOM!

To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the next few hours, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM

If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers

Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:

Meeting ID: 892 8664 2629
Passcode: 673323

3) TODAY’S AGENDA

Post 1 of 4, 1:00PM—Introduction, SF/F Geography Quiz, ZOOM-Chat Begins

Post 2 of 4, 2:00PM—ZOOM-Chat Continues, 7 Stupid SF/F Shark Movies (Rerun)

Post 3 of 4, 3:00PM—Mid-Meeting Break; Discussion of Club Business, With Special Focus on August 17 In-Person Meeting, Lobby Card Game

Post 4 of 4, 4:00PM—Answers to SF/F Geography Quiz and Wrap-Up

4) SF/F GEOGRAPHY QUIZ

How well do you know your science fiction and fantasy geography?

Culled from SF/F cinema and television, we have selected 36 images depicting a variety of landscapes, from strange alien worlds and futuristic cities to legendary lands and foreboding architecture, each a setting featured in a different science fiction or fantasy movie or TV series.

These images are what filmmakers term “establishing shots.” Whether real-world locations, miniature sets, glass or matte paintings, or a composite of several elements seamlessly stitched together by Hollywood’s special effects wizards, an establishing shot is employed to visually place the audience in a particular setting ahead of the action that is about to unfold.

Your challenge is to identify the film or TV series that corresponds to each image. Give yourself an additional pat on the back if you can name or describe the geographical location in question!

Good luck!

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Relax-a-ZOOM Virtual Picnic

Missed MonSFFA’s Barbecue-in-the-Park last Saturday? The club will host a “Relax-a-ZOOM” Virtual Picnic right here at www.MonSFFA.ca this Saturday, July 15, beginning at 1:00PM! Have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!

No formal programming is planned, just a game or two, and an afternoon of casual conversation with friends on topics SF/F and fannish! Share with your fellow MonSFFen the details of your latest genre-themed craft project; tell the group about an SF/F book, movie, or TV series you’ve been enjoying of late; or share vacation photos of cool sci-fi events, exhibits, museums, or shops you may have recently visited!

The floor is open! Your input is welcome and encouraged!

Given this opportunity, we will have information on our scheduled August in-person meeting—the first in over three years!—plans for the return of the club’s fund-raising book sale, and other matters for which the input of our membership is desired.

Mark your calendars, and we hope to see you online Saturday!

We remind MonSFFen to mark the next two Saturdays on their calendars!

MonSFFA’s Summer Barbecue-in-the-Park 2023 is scheduled for this Saturday, July 8, and our virtual get-together/picnic—a “Relax-a-ZOOM”—is set to follow one week later, on Saturday, July 15.

Barbecue-in-the-Park

MonSFFen and their families, as well as friends  of the club, are invited to gather beginning at 10:00AM in Parc Maisonneuve on Saturday, July 8, for the club’s 2023 Barabecue-in-the-Park! Parc Maisonneuve, easily accessible by Metro or bus,  is located in the city’s East End, adjacent the Botanical Gardens and the Olympic Stadium. Parking is available on site, or on nearby streets.

Our intention is to claim a picnic spot somewhere along one of the rows of trees, not too far from the parking lot and the chalet. Our “Preferred Picnic Area” is indicated on the map (above).  Look for us in roughly that area.

So join us for a relaxing day in the park! Friends, fun, food, and fire, the latter in the form of our new “Dragon’s Breath” propane barbecue, which we’ll have on site for those who may wish to grill up a couple of hamburgers, hotdogs, and other such summer staples! Bring your own refreshments, snacks, and any meats you may wish to barbecue.

And please note that proper washroom facilities are located in the chalet, a marked improvement over the deteriorating and unsanitary facilities at Parc Angrignon, our former barbecue locale!

Should the weather prove inclement on the 8th, the event will be shifted 24 hours forward to Sunday, July 9. If necessary, we will post a notice on the club’s Website of any change in the schedule by no later than 9:00AM, Saturday morning, the 8th.

Then…

SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1:00PM: Relax-a-ZOOM Virtual Picnic

We will also host, this month, a “Relax-a-ZOOM” Virtual Picnic right here at www.MonSFFA.ca on Saturday, July 15, at 1:00PM—have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!

No formal programming is planned, just a game or two, and an afternoon of casual conversation with friends on topics SF/F and fannish, including, given this opportunity, a little bit of club business regarding our planned August in-person meeting, and related issues, for which the input of our membership is desired.

We hope to see you at one, or both of these events!

 

To download a PDF of our “Club Events in July” flyer, click here: FLYER

Mark the next two Saturday’s on your calendars! MonSFFA’s Summer Barbecue-in-the-Park 2023 is scheduled for this Saturday, July 8, with a virtual get-together/picnic, our Relax-a-ZOOM, to follow one week later on Saturday, July 15.

Barbecue-in-the-Park

MonSFFen and their families, as well as friends of the club, are invited to gather at 10:00AM in Parc Maisonneuve on Saturday, July 8, for the club’s 2023 Barabecue-in-the-Park! Parc Maisonneuve, easily accessible by Metro or bus, is located in the city’s East End, adjacent the Botanical Gardens and the Olympic Stadium. Parking is available on site, or on nearby streets.

Our intention is to claim a picnic spot somewhere along one of the lines of trees, not too far from the parking lot and the chalet. Our “Preferred Picnic Area” is indicated on the map (above). Look for us in roughly that area.

So do join us for a relaxing day in the park! Friends, fun, food, and fire, the latter in the form of our new “Dragon’s Breath” propane barbecue, which we’ll have on site for those who may wish to grill up a couple of hamburgers, hotdogs, and such! Bring your own refreshments, snacks, and any meats you may wish to barbecue. And note that proper washroom facilities are located in the chalet.

Should the weather prove inclement on the 8th, the event will be shifted 24 hours forward to Sunday, July 9. We will post a notice of any change in the schedule no later than 9:00AM, Saturday morning, the 8th.

Then…

Relax-a-ZOOM Virtual Picnic

We will also host a “Relax-a-ZOOM” Virtual Picnic right here at www.MonSFFA.ca on Saturday, July 15, at 1:00PM—have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!

No formal programming is planned, just a game or two, and an afternoon of casual conversation with friends on topics SF/F and fannish, including, given this opportunity, a little bit of club business regarding our planned August in-person meeting, and related issues, for which the input of our membership is desired.

This is our closing post of the afternoon.

11) ANSWERS: TWO-FOUR SCI-FI TRIVIA QUIZ

Following are the answers to the trivia quiz we posted at 1:00PM. How many questions did you correctly answer? Compare your answers to these:

1) Fill in the blank! These SF/F titles are missing a single word: The ______ Tree; Haunted______; Dinosaur ______; and Without a ______. What is that missing word?

ANSWER: “Summer” is the missing word.

The Summer Tree (1984) is a novel by Canadian fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay, Book One of his Fionavar Tapestry.

Haunted Summer (1988) is a film dramatizing the famous summer of 1816 at Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Romantic poet Lord Byron had rented the house and invited a group of his aristocratic friends to join him there. During their stay, a horror-story writing contest was organized, spawning two classics of Gothic literature, John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre” and Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley’s (née Godwin) Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. Polidori’s story is cited as the originator of romantic vampire fiction, Shelley’s often as the first true science fiction story.

Dinosaur Summer (1998) is an alternate-history novel penned by Greg Bear. It’s 1947 in a world where the dinosaur-populated South American plateau of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912) is an actual place, and his Professor Challenger a real person! Among the central group of characters are versions of real-life fantasy filmmakers Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen, whose lives take a different turn in a reality where the existence of the real thing rendered unnecessary animated rubber models of dinosaurs.

Without a Summer (2013), a novel by Mary Robinette Kowal, is Book Three of her Glamourist Histories series, which injects an element of magic—here called “glamour”—into historical romantic fiction. The title refers to the so-called “Year Without a Summer,” 1816, the same period in which is set Haunted Summer. A volcanic eruption in the Pacific the previous year triggered a global climate anomaly and a decrease in normal temperatures, resulting in a chilly, rainy summer in Europe and food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.

2) First seen in the opening minutes of Star Wars (1977), what is the name of this CR90 corvette, employed as an Alderaanian diplomatic cruiser and rebel blockade runner?

ANSWER: Tantive IV.

3) Which of these characters does not belong? A) Jaime Reyes, B) Samuel “Sam” Guthrie, C) Dan Garrett, D) Theodore “Ted” Kord

ANSWER: B) Samuel “Sam” Guthrie, alter ego of the Marvel superhero Cannonball, a founding member of the New Mutants.

The other three have this in common: each has donned the mantle of the superhero Blue Beetle. Garrett (spelled “Garret” initially) was the original Golden Age character (1939, Fox Comics; later Charlton Comics, where the character was refurbished for the Silver Age). Kord followed (Charlton Comics, and eventually DC Comics), and finally, Reyes (DC Comics). Reimagined and retconned over the decades, Blue Beetle has usually been depicted as deriving his superpowers from an ancient mystical Egyptian scarab, most recently interpreted as a technologically advanced device of alien origin.

A Warner Bros./DC film adaptation of the Reyes Blue Beetle is scheduled to premiere August 18 of this year.

4) Most Worldcons have been held in the U.S.; how many have been held outside of the United States?

ANSWER: There have been 80 Worldcons held to date. Excluding CoNZealand in 2020, which was moved online for reasons of pandemic-related safety, 21 have been held outside the U.S.

The U.K. has hosted seven, five in England, two in Scotland; Canada has hosted five, Australia four, and Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Finland, and Ireland, one each.

The 81st Worldcon will take place in Chengdu, China later this year, and Glasgow, Scotland will again host in 2024, which will boost the number of non-U.S. Worldcons to 23.

5) Who played youngster David MacLean in the original Invaders From Mars (1953), in which the vanguard of a Martian invasion force lands in the boy’s hometown?

ANSWER: Jimmy Hunt. Decades later, an adult Hunt appeared as the town’s police chief in Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake of Invaders From Mars.

6) The novels Omnivore (1968), Orn (1970), and OX (1976) constitute which SF trilogy?

ANSWER: Of Man and Manta.

All three novels were collected as Of Man and Manta (1986). Explorers from Earth investigate a world populated by fungi, including the intelligent mantas, which superficially resemble manta rays.

7) What is the title of the fifth Indiana Jones movie, scheduled to premiere later this month, on the 30th?

ANSWER: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

8) “They Were Looking For Chicks…To Go All The Way!”—the marketing campaign of which sci-fi movie employed that tag line? A) Teenagers from Outer Space (1959), B) Mars Needs Women (1968), C) Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), D) Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957)

ANSWER: B) Mars Needs Women (1968), written, produced, and directed by self-proclaimed schlock artist Larry Buchanan. Disney mainstay Tommy Kirk starred, along with Yvonne “Batgirl” Craig.

9) How many Worldcons has Canada hosted?

ANSWER: Five; three in Toronto (1948, 1973, and 2003), one in Winnipeg (1994), and one in Montreal (2009).

10) The Humanx Commonwealth, an organization similar to Star Trek’s Federation of Planets, is featured in the science fiction stories of which writer?

ANSWER: Alan Dean Foster.

11) What two sentient species jointly administer the Humanx Commonwealth?

ANSWER: the mammalian Humans, of Earth, and the insectoid Thranx, of Hivehom are the Commonwealth’s two principal players. Alan Dean Foster’s Nor Crystal Tears (1982), a first-contact story, sees the beginnings of what would eventually become the Humanx Commonwealth, that tale detailed in the author’s Founding of the Commonwealth trilogy, comprising Phylogenesis (1999), Dirge (2000), and Diuturnity’s Dawn (2002).

12) Which of these men develops psychohistory, a fictional algorithmic science that allows general predictions to be made of the future in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series? A) Harrison Bergeron, B) Harry Harrison, C) Harry Mudd, D) Hari Seldon

ANSWER: D) Hari Seldon.

A mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor, Seldon employs sociology, history, and the laws of statistics as applied to large populations in order to arrive at general forecasts of future events. He is thus able to predict the inevitable fall of the Galactic Empire, of which he is a citizen.

Harrison Bergeron is the titular character in a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. short story, Harry Mudd is a Star Trek rapscallion, and Harry Harrison is a real-life science fiction writer known for his Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero series.

13) Who played Camie Loneozner in the original Star Wars (1977), only to see her scenes excised from the final cut?

ANSWER: British model/actress Koo Stark.

Born Kathleen Norris Stark and known for her roles in a couple of mid-1970s erotic films, she also appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the sci-fi/romantic comedy Electric Dreams (1984), and a 1989 episode of Red Dwarf.

She was Prince Andrew’s girlfriend for a time, something of a scandal in that she had starred in what the press categorized as soft-core porn films—yeah, she was the degenerate! Stark later became an accomplished photographer.

Her role in Star Wars was as one of Luke Skywalker’s group of friends on Tatooine. Those excised scenes have since become available for ardent fans.

14) Match the robots (left column) with the science fiction titles in which they appear (right column).

ANSWERS: A-7, Robby the Robot appeared in the classic Forbidden Planet; B-10, robot servant Jenkins attended generations of the Webster family in Clifford D. Simak’s City; C-8, Hector was the homicidal robot in Saturn 3; D-9, Huey, Dewey, and Louie were maintenance drones aboard the Valley Forge in Silent Running; E-3, Police robot Gort appeared in The Day the Earth Stood Still; F-2, Diktor the robot lover appeared in the Barbarella comic books;

G-11, Number 5, later renaming himself Johnny 5, was an experimental military robot that gained sentience after a lightning strike scrambled its programming in the sci-fi/comedy Short Circuit; H-1, Box was a shiny, chrome-plated robot designed to capture food—and runners!—outside the city in Logan’s Run;I-12, Ash was the duplicitous android in Alien; J-5, Gnut was the robot featured in the Harry Bates story that served as the basis for The Day the Earth Stood Still; K-4, Ro-Man was bent on the destruction of Earth in Robot Monster; and L-6, “The Robot” was principally the companion and protector of young Will Robinson in TV’s Lost in Space.

15) Who played astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston in the original Invaders From Mars (1953)?

ANSWER: Arthur Franz.

16) The protagonists of the science fiction novel Icerigger (1974) crash-land on what frozen world?

ANSWER: Tran-ky-ky.

Alan Dean Foster’s Icerigger is the first book of a trilogy set on this frigid, windswept planet, inhabited by the cat-like, bipedal Tran, who sport batwing-like menbranes under their arms and specialized claws on their feet with which to windskate across the arctic landscape.

Mission to Moulokin (1979) and The Deluge Drivers (1987) are Icerigger’s two sequels.

17) “Derelict of Space” (1939), “Meteor” (1941), “Tyrant and Slave-Girl on Planet Venus” (1951), and “The Red Stuff” (1951)—who wrote these science fiction short stories?

ANSWER: They were all penned by English SF writer John Wyndham writing as John Beynon. The author of The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) derived several pseudonyms from his birth name, John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris; John Wyndham itself is one such alias!

18) Which of these science fiction characters does not belong with the others? A) Ethan Frome Fortune, B) Hellespont du Kane, C) Raymus Antilles, D) Skua September

ANSWER: C) Raymus Antilles. Played by Peter Geddis in the original Star Wars (1977), he was captain of the Tantive IV, and was choked to death by Darth Vader in a memorable early scene from the film.

The others are all characters in Alan Dean Foster’s novel Icerigger (1974).

19) Rudolph Martin, Gary Oldman, Frank Langella, and Nicolas Cage—other than their profession, what do these actors have in common?

ANSWER: They have all played the role of Dracula, Martin in the fifth season premiere of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Oldman in the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Langella in the 1979 film Dracula, and Cage in the 2023 film Renfield.

20) With regard to the horror genre, what do the towns of Rockbridge, Midwich, Haddonfield, and Antonio Bay have in common?

ANSWER: They all served as the setting of a John Carpenter film.

Rockbridge was the setting of Christine (1983), Midwich of Carpenter’s remake of Village of the Damned (1995), Haddonfield of Halloween (1978), and Antonio Bay of The Fog (1980).

21) André Morell, Andrew Keir, Brian Donlevy, and John Mills have all played which acclaimed scientist-hero?

ANSWER: Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group—later shortened to British Rocket Group.

Quatermass was the main protagonist in the influential BBC science fiction television serials created by Nigel Kneale, and subsequently adapted as a trio of movies by Hammer Film Productions. Morell and Keir both played the role in Quatermass and the Pit, Morell on television (1958-1959), Keir in the Hammer film version (1967). Donlevy played the scientist-hero in Hammer’s The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Quatermass II (1957). And Mills played the character, now retired, in Quatermass (1979), a four-part ITV television series recut later that same year by Euston Films for theatrical release as The Quatermass Conclusion.

22) In which Canadian province is set American International Pictures’ 1976 B-movie The Food of the Gods?

ANSWER: British Columbia.

The film was written and directed by low-budget movie-maker and visual effects artist Bert I. Gordon.

A group of friends travel to a remote island in British Columbia on a hunting trip, where they encounter oversized wasps and rats made gigantic after having ingested a strange, porridge-like liquid—the Food of the Gods—bubbling up through the soil on a nearby farm.

The movie was not only set on a remote island in British Columbia, but filmed in B.C., specifically on Bowen Island, part of Metro Vancouver.

A local angle is that some of the special effects sequences were shot in Montreal.

23) The Lady of the Sorrows (2002) and The Battle of Evernight (2003) are the second and third books, respectively, of Australian fantasy writer Cecilia Dart-Thornton’s Bitterbynde trilogy. Name the first book in this series.

ANSWER: The Ill-Made Mute (2001).

24) Who played army commander Colonel Fielding in the original Invaders From Mars (1953)?

ANSWER: Seasoned character actor Morris Ankrum, who was a fixture of sci-fi movies in the 1950s.

12) THANK YOU!

We extend a special “Thank You” to our guest speaker, Olivia Atwater, for taking part this afternoon. We also thank Joe Aspler, Keith Braithwaite, and Cathy Palmer-Lister for their contributions today. And, we offer a nod of appreciation, as well, to all of our supporting contributors.

MonSFFA hopes you have enjoyed your time with us this afternoon, we thank you for dropping in, and we ask all of you to check in regularly here at www.MonSFFA.ca for additional content.

We look forward to again gathering, face to face, at our Barbecue in the Park in July, and at August’s get-together, the first in-person meeting we’ve been able to schedule in over three years!

Thank you for your interest and attention today, and don’t forget to comment on this afternoon’s e-meeting!

13) JULY CLUB EVENTS

Barbecue-in-the-Park

MonSFFen and their families, as well as friends of the club, are invited to gather at Parc Maisonneuve on Saturday, July 8, for the club’s 2023 Barabecue-in-the-Park! Parc Maisonneuve, easily accessible by Metro or bus, is located in the city’s East End, adjacent the Botanical Gardens and the Olympic Stadium. Parking is available on site, or on nearby streets.

Should the weather prove inclement on the 8th, the event will be shifted 24 hours forward to Sunday, July 9.

Relax-a-ZOOM Virtual Picnic

We will also host a “Relax-a-ZOOM” Virtual Picnic right here at www.MonSFFA.ca on Saturday, July 15, at 1:00PM—have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand! No formal programming is planned, just a game of some kind, and an afternoon of casual conversation with friends on topics SF/F and fannish, including, given this opportunity, a little bit of club business for which the input of our membership is desired.

14) SIGN-OFF 

And so, until we meet again, whether in person on a club outing, live in a physical meeting hall, or online again right here at www.MonSFFA.ca, keep well, everyone; soak in the summer sun and fun! And, remember: only you can prevent a forest fire!

10) “WHAT ARE YOU READING/WATCHING?” 

On ZOOM at this moment, we’re asking “What are You Reading, or Watching?” Give us your quick book report, or your brief review of a film or TV show you’ve recently enjoyed!

For those not participating in our ZOOM chat today, you may still contribute by submitting your concise book reports or movie and television-series reviews via this post’s “Leave a Comment” option. We welcome your input.

9)There have been many fine ships named Enterprise. In this presentation, I will summarise their origins, their history, their battles, and the exploration that they carried out